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ENVISIONING BODILY DIFFERENCE:
REFIGURING FAT AND LESBIAN SUBJECTS IN CONTEMPORARY ART AND
VISUAL CULTURE, 1968-2009
by
Stefanie Snider
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ART HISTORY)
August 2010
Copyright 2010 Stefanie Snider

Envisioning Bodily Difference: Refiguring Fat and Lesbian Subjects in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture, 1968-2009 focuses on both lesbian and fat subjects in multiple forms of visual representation over the past forty years in the United States. Nearly all of the individuals imaged in the representations discussed here are self-identified as lesbians and/or queer women. Many of them are fat as well. Many of the representations discussed here were produced within lesbian and fat subcultures, made by those who identify with these communities and who planned to circulate the images within the subculture, whether through journals or newsletters, books, or art galleries. Each set of creators and objects or experiences chosen to be discussed in the sub-sections of the three chapters and conclusion of the dissertation in some way help to negotiate the ways in which fat women and lesbians or queer women have been visualized in the past several decades. More broadly, each has contributed to the ways in which mainstream and/ or subcultural communities have reconceptualized norms about bodily comportment, gender, and sexual expression through visual representation. Along the historical timeline of this dissertation, beginning in 1968 and lasting through 2009, most of the subjects looked at here have been considered deviant or “non-normative” (i.e., female, non-white, disabled, fat, and lesbian subjects) in large part because of body-based identities. Moreover, many have been seen as monstrous, excessive, and dangerous – to themselves and others – because their physical and discursive identities have violated the boundaries of the cultural taste of their time. Embracing these alleged slurs has been one way of disempowering dominant cultural ideology about fatness as a sign of moral weakness, physical laziness and illness, and aesthetic debasement.; The key visual works and texts analyzed here are taken from and contextualized within feminist, lesbian, queer, and fat art making and viewing practices, cultural theories, and activism performed since the late 1960s. Stemming from the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, incipient feminist, lesbian and gay, and fat liberation movements marked a historical shift in which groups previously seen as holding a minority status in United States culture began to define their own objectives for equal rights and desire for recognition as important contributors to American culture.; Issues of visual representation and empowerment, as they intersect with multiple marginalized identities are addressed in this dissertation: How do lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual female sexualities come to be represented in visual media, including fine art and documentary photography, journals, and performance, and how has this changed since the late 1960s? What is the role of feminist art and politics in the visualization of sexuality and sexual subjects? How are “non-normative” bodies used in such representations? What does the inclusion of lesbian and other female subjects in contemporary art and visual culture tell us about the politics of visibility in multiple forms of media? How and to whom do these varied visual media communicate resistance or conformity with heteronormative and/ or thin body ideals? What is the importance of the differences in meaning produced by the different media and circulation of such imagery and how does each communicate in medium-specific ways?

ENVISIONING BODILY DIFFERENCE:
REFIGURING FAT AND LESBIAN SUBJECTS IN CONTEMPORARY ART AND
VISUAL CULTURE, 1968-2009
by
Stefanie Snider
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ART HISTORY)
August 2010
Copyright 2010 Stefanie Snider